Sword and shield. (Clinton, Miss.) 1885-1888, 1887-02-12

dead men, that is all about it." was nay con-
sOlatory reply.
For the next ten minutes we trudged on in
silence, when suddenly Umbopa, who was
marching along beside me, wrapped up in
his blanket, with leather belt strapped so
tight round his stomach to "make his hun
ger small" as he said, that his waist looked
like girls, caught me by the arm.
"L0okY' he said, pointing toward the
springing slope of the nipple.
followed his glance, and perceived some
two hundred yards from us what appeared
to be hole in the snow.
1T is the cave" said Umbopa
We made the best of our way to the spot,
and found sure enough that the hole was the
mouth Of a cave, no doubt the same as that
of which Da Silvestra wrote. We were
none to soon, for just as we reached shelter
the sun went down with startling rapidity,
leaving the whole place nearly dark. In
these latitudes there is but little twilight
We crept into the cave, which did not ap-
pear to be very big. and huddling ourselves
together for warmth, swallowed what re-
mained of our brandy-barely a mouthful
each-and tried to forget our miseries in
sleep. But this the cold was too intense to
allow US to do. / am convinced that at that
great altitude the thermometer cannot have
been less than fourteen or fifteen degrees be-
low freezing point. What this meant to us,
enervated as we were by hardship, want of
food, and the great heat of the desert, my
reader can imagine better than / can deS-
scribe. Suffice is to say that it was some
thing as near death from exposure as l have
ever felt There we sat hour after hour
through the bitter night, feeling the frost
wander round and nip us now in the finger,
now in the foot, and now in the face. In
vain did we huddle up closer and closer;
there was no warmth in our miserable,
starved carcasses. Sometimes one of us
would drop into an uneasy slumber for
few minutes, but we could not sleep long,
and perhaps it was fortunate, for doubt if
we should ever have woke again. believe it
was only by force of will that we kept our
selves alive at all.
Not very long before dawn | heard the
Hottentot Ventvogel, whose teeth had been
chattering all night like castanets, give a
deep sigh, and then his teeth stopped chat
tering. did not think anything of it at the
tiIne concluding that he had gone to sleep.
His back was resting against mine, and it
seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last
it was like ice.
At length the air began to grow gray with
light, then swift, golden arrows came fash
ing across the snow, and at last the glorious
sun peeped up above the lava wall and
looked in upon our half-frozen forms and up
on Nentvogel, sitting there amongst us stone
dead. No wonder his back had felt cold,
poor fellow. He had died when heard him
sigh and was now almost frozen -stiff.
Shocked beyond measure we dragged our
selves from the corpse (strange the horror we
all have of the companionship Of a dead
body, and left it still sitting there, with its
arms clasped round its knees.
BY this time the sunlight was pouring its
cold rays (for here they are cold) straight in
at the mouth of the cave. Suddenly heard
an exclamation of fear from some one, and
turned my head down the cave
And this was what | saw. Sitting at the
end of it, for it was not more than twenty
feet long, was another form, of which the
head rested on the chest and the long arms
hung down. stared at it, and saw that it
was dead man, and what was more white
man.
The others saw it too, and the sight proved
too much for our shattered nerves. One and
all we scrambled out of the cave as fast az
our half-frOzen limbs would allow.